


A Village Concert

by GMWWemyss



Category: Cross and Poppy, Original Work, Village Tales
Genre: Church of England, F/M, Gen, M/M, Northern Soul, The Woolfonts, Village concert, Village fete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1295851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/GMWWemyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which, despite rumours of trouble impending, the villages of The Woolfonts come together for a West Country evening ... of Northern Soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Village Concert

**Author's Note:**

> _By way of introduction…._ These are those passages from the novel _Cross and Poppy: a village tale,_ which centre upon the Village Concert. They are offered as an _amuse-bouche._ What you want to know to follow along is simple enough. 
> 
> The young Anglo-Catholic priest, Fr Noel Paddick, a recent widower – sometimes described physically as ‘Becks in a biretta’, and, as regards his personality, as ‘Captain Carrot in a cassock’ – has been brought from his native Wolvo to the placid, chocolate-box West Country villages of The Woolfonts: Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Parva, Woolfont Abbas, and Woolfont Crucis: by the patron of the joint benefice, the peppery Charles, duke of Taunton (a Fitzjames, descended of one of James II’s bastards). 
> 
> There he joins other young incomers, including Edmond Huskisson, a retired (because outed) Premier League footballer; Edmond’s partner, Teddy Gates the ‘Hipster Chef’, who runs (the duke strikes again) the Woolford House Hotel; Brian ‘The Breener’ Maguire, Irish-born former England cricketer, and ornament, nowadays, of TMS; and Sher Mirza, a devout Muslim who happens to be an expert on English music – including Anglican church music – and who left Leeds, first for the bottle and then, the duke intervening, for a sober life as English and Music master at the (ducally-created) Free School in neighbouring Beechbourne. 
> 
> Sher’s discreetly bi (and nursing the wounds from an unfortunate hook-up a few years before with the duke’s cousin Kit, duke of Trowbridge, who lives a few parishes to the eastwards). Fr Paddick didn’t think _he_ was anything save straight … until he met Sher. Sher fell hard – and tried to take refuge in dating the Hon. Gwen Evans, who runs the local racing stud. 
> 
> Edmond thinks Sher and Noel are simply barking mad to put their religious convictions before their blatant mutual attraction; Teddy thinks Edmond should tread carefully; and The Breener thinks they want to leave Gwen Evans right out of this. (Snook, the sexton, is in favour of anything that distracts rectorial attention from his never doing a hand’s turn of work.) The duke’s sister-in-law Connie – Lady Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet – wants no part of any of this; his nephews wish everyone’d pipe down about it; and his niece, who regards The Lads and the Rector as her very own village boyband, is shipping Sher and Noel like anything. Simon Kellow down the pub is simply hoping this year’s Village Concert will have some Northern Soul, of which he was a youthful fan; and some of the less prepossessing local yoofs want Sher Mirza harmed or dead, they being both racist, and hateful towards anyone who’s not straight as a die.
> 
> Fortunately, the duke’s more than a comic figure (and was Int Corps at the sharp end in several desert places), and the duke’s butler, Viney, is a positive Jeeves-cum-Bunter.

* * *

* * *

The duke and Fr Paddick had indeed stayed up rather too late, losing themselves in the temptations of the ducal model railways. (The Breener was known to observe it was a pity that there was no manufacturer of Scalefour under the name of ‘Barlow’: as the duke’s two passions were trains and cricket, it’d’ve allowed plenty of ‘O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago’ jokes. The Breener’s sense of humour, the parishes conceded, could be a trying one.) Fr Paddick had known he’d regret those late hours on his morning run (‘You’re a mad bugger, Padre, but if it amuses you; it’s just at a mile to the gate, if you must keep track, or you can frolic anywhere you like in the grounds, although if you trample the gardens, Street’s wrath – m’ head gardener: an absolute tyrant – will be as nothing to the haunting you’ll get from the shade of Gertrude Jekyll’); he’d resolved that a more than customary mortification of the flesh should probably do him no end of good.

What he had not expected was to be roused in the early hours – by the duke, not a servant – and dragged cheerfully to the kennels, where one of the duke’s champion working Clumber bitches was pupping. Nor, by the looks of them: Brian tired but as undimmed in happiness as ever, Teddy frankly yawning, Edmond waspish with weariness, and a shy, soft Sher not, he suspected, actually awake: had the others expected it, who’d apparently been rung up or even knocked up by a driver with a ducal Bristol idling on the verge. (Fair play, The Breener’d said, to whoever knocked up Sher, whose love for and soundness of sleep was proverbial amongst his friends.) Evidently, whether any of them had wanted one or not, they’d all long since been promised, and overborne into accepting, the reversion of a pup from Maud’s next litter.

Only Viney and the duke, Fr Paddick rather thought, had realised that as he’d subtly moved his hands above the new litter, and murmured what the others doubtless had thought was the usual nonsense-talk that pups and kittens bring forth in anyone not wholly heartless, he’d been in fact quietly blessing the animals. (Franciscan spirituality had always attracted Noel.) In this he was mistaken, as The Breener had, typically, spotted it at the off, with a quiet grin of approval. Brian Maguire tended to live life rather fully, but he was, at the end of the day, a very devout son of the Roman Church; and a man who’d kept wicket for England was not a man given to missing anything within the circuit of his eyes.

One of the pups, a lemon and white bitch, had somehow managed, even blind and bumbling about for a teat and food, to give her heart to Sher and steal his in recompense, Fr Paddick saw with a carefully suppressed smile.

The duke had seen it also. ‘I believe little Ernestine is to be yours, Mirza.’

‘But –’

‘I’ll let you know when she’s ready to go home to Bluebell Cottage. Eric’ll get along with her, you’ll see.’

There was, of course, no gainsaying His Grace; and it was reasonably evident that Sher didn’t wish to do. He didn’t care at all for Working Gundog Certificates and breeding and the studbook and field-trial and bench-trial Championships: somehow, he and – there was no question the duke’s casual naming should stick – Ernestine had bonded already.

‘Gates; Huskisson.’ The duke was brisk. ‘As the two of you yet technically maintain separate households: which two d’ y’ like?’

By the time – some hours later, and after Fr Paddick’s morning run and bracing dip into the BCP, they were all (bar the duke, who’d already despatched a few hours’ worth of estate management and had had a hack ’round the policies: Fr Paddick was glad, frankly, that he wasn’t the only one being glared at as being One of Those Bloody _Morning_ People) yawning over a ducal breakfast (Sher of course declining) – Brian was slated to take a lemon and white dog he’d already named ‘Dara’ (‘Of _course_ lemon, t’ey’re all lovely, but, Jaysus, is it me should have a dog wit’ _orange_ to him?’). Edmond and Teddy had chosen two little bitches, and were muttering names back and forth like expectant parents. And in some fashion that had transpired too quickly to be discerned until after, Fr Paddick was to be acquiring a dog-pup with lovely brownish-liverish markings, whom (Noel did not believe animals, and least of all dogs, were a ‘which’) he had already privately named ‘Swithun’, whose feast day fell in the coming week. (He’d thought of Osmund as well, but he wasn’t quite certain what the protocol might be for naming your dog – even a ducal spaniel – for the saintly former bishop of one’s new diocese.)

The inattentive might have thought Sher was yet half-asleep; but Fr Paddick, the duke, and The Breener saw the occasional soft, secret smiles he all but hugged to himself whenever the new pups, and Ernestine in particular, were mentioned.

‘– best mouser and ratter we ever had, that cat,’ laughed the duke, full of anecdote and buttered toast. ‘Gingery, imperious, and no-nonsense: of _course_ I named her “Moggie Thatcher”, how could I not have done?

‘I do miss her.’

‘The cat or Lady T?’

‘Both, you flat-’atted Northerners. Now, don’t you start in on it, any of you: you didn’t know the Blessed Margaret; I did. Worked for her and Keith Joseph and Norman, you know. The Conservative Party in _my_ day was the Conservative Party, not a pale imitation of New Labour.

‘But don’t let’s for Heaven’s sake spoil brekker. Sher, my lad: what are your plans for the Village Concert, eh? I know you’ll be at the keyboard, but surely you’ll sing a song or two this year?’ Typically, the duke did not pause to let Sher answer before turning to explain to Fr Paddick, ‘Not the fête, as such: a sort of supererogatory fête in aid of – whatever in buggery it’s in aid of _this_ year, damned if I recall. Falls in October or early November every year, after the Harvest Festival and before Remembrance Sunday and Advent: we’ll be done and dusted with the repairs to the Church Hall by then, thank God. You needn’t worry about the fête proper _this_ year, it’s all in hand for August: marquee out there,’ said the duke, nodding towards a window, ‘and God knows we’ve room enough inside if it’s wet.’

The duke failed to mention that, under his hand, the Village Concert had become a sort of local Proms-cum-Glasto: as might, knowing the duke, have been expected. He was not a man capable of content with small affairs, or of leaving well alone.

‘But you never answered my question,’ said he to Sher, quite unfairly. ‘Singing?’

Sher carefully did not sigh. ‘Yes, Duke. A bit of R&B. We like,’ added Sher to Fr Paddick, ‘to keep it secular – and a bit more up to date, like, than the fête. Yeah … so. I thought some old-school R&B?’

The duke made no attempt to dissemble his wince. ‘I suspect we have different definitions of “old school”, and I don’t mean Eton, unless you intend to surprise and gratify me with some Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, or Bill Withers. With you lot, I must be content that it’s not worse, and no worse than mainstream pop and R&B: we’ve OAPs and schoolchildren, and I’d thus prefer to avoid, say, a cover of “Closer” or “Relax” – oh, don’t give me that look, and you least of all, Huskisson, I don’t, alas, actually _live_ in the 1930s. Very well, young Mirza: but I hope you also yet possess the sheet music for, and recall the words to, “My Old Man Said Follow the Van” and “Knees Up, Mother Brown”, as well as “The Vly”, because at the end of the day there _shall_ be a sing-along and there _shall_ be OAPs.’

‘Aye, Duke. And the lads and I are ready. “We’ll Meet Again”; “There’ll Always Be an England”; “Jerusalem” – which I am willing to play, but I will _not_ sing – the lot.’

‘Super. Padre? Obviously, you’re an old chorister, and you chant for a living – that’s rather neat,’ chortled the duke – ‘but you needn’t sing if you don’t care to do. Have you a comic monologue, perhaps?’

Fr Paddick grinned, suddenly looking boyish (and Sher’s heart turned over in his chest). ‘Duke, I might even beat-box.’

Edmond and Teddy exchanged a hand-slap as The Breener gleefully punched the air.

‘Celebrate all you like, Maguire,’ said the duke, with a gleaming eye. ‘The Committee have already ruled that you’re banned from the fête’s jam-doughnut-eating competition – permanently: it’s not a fair playing field.’

* * *

Dinner _en famille_ at Wolfdown House – which, the duke had warned Fr Paddick, might be regarded as a Live Fire Exercise in training for the Grand Reconciliation Dinner with the Bishop – was likewise … interesting.

Lady Crispin looked, to the casual gaze, a creature of fire and ice: smooth and cold, yet discernibly possessed of the temperament which is the privilege of red hair, which she had in abundance. In fact, Lady Crispin – ‘It’s “Connie”, please, Rector’ – was conversable and, if in rather a remote fashion, kindly … so long as one were not her brother-in-law. Her son Rupert was a tall, russet-hued young man who looked the very model of a Fifth Form wet-bob, and whose sole interests were in fact cricket and maths (which depressed his uncle, who feared that this infant wrangling should lead the child rather to Cambridge than to Oxford); James, a year younger, was a fair and flaxen lad who resembled the pattern of a flannelled fool at the wicket but whose interests were, instead, rowing and history. Both were well-regarded Oppidan Scholars and very much expected to become house captains after their prefectly apprenticeships, and somewhat indulged by their housemasters in family issues – not without a certain unspoken deference to ducal position, had Charles but recognised it. (Cyril Ponton was always happy to run them back and forth on Short Leaves during Halves, ninety minutes each way: they amused him, and respected him not less, privately calling him ‘The Stig’ when Uncle Charles wasn’t in earshot.)

Their sister, Henrietta Maria at the font and Hetty ever since, was a pretty, reddish-blonde creature just past the cusp of adolescence, who was wholly uninterested in any academic subject, or, indeed, anything save horses (the duke was known to make regular comments comparing his niece to a Thelwell character) and, of late, and increasingly, _boys_. Cheltenham Ladies’ – Connie had hoped to place her daughter at her own beloved Roedean, but with Charles as trustee paying the scot … well – Cheltenham Ladies’ had broken up for the Summer as well: and should in any case have sighed with relief at granting Hetty short leave or any conceivable exeat, on almost any excuse.

‘You’re fortunate, Rector,’ said Connie over the fish. ‘You’ll have time to play yourself in before the Village Concert – always a cross to bear, I think – and you’re absolved of any responsibility for the actual Fête Worse Than Death, this year.’

‘I’m looking forward to both. Actually.’

‘Hmm. We’ll see if you say that next year. Charles is running out of things to sing – the penalty of being a basso, I fear – and one does get a trifle bored with John Wellington Wells and the Mikado, year in and year out.’

‘I can’t very well sing Barry White to the OAPs, Consternation.’

‘You _could:_ they’d love it. You simply _won’t._ You used never to worry whether you were suiting yourself to your ducal position, Charles, but this long bachelorhood has made you stodgy.’

Fr Paddick carefully refrained – as Rupert did not – from raising an eyebrow. The duke struck neither of them as a man given to stodge, or to considering his position.

‘I have never understood,’ said Connie, ploughing on regardless, ‘why you didn’t marry, oh, Barbara, say.’

‘Barbara Cellier?’ His Grace was scoffing. ‘Good God.’

‘Lady Barbara, as she was, should have been perfectly suitable –’

‘ _Major_ Barbara, you mean. Appalling woman. Remorseless –’

‘Your calling her as “Barbara Celerant” –’

James looked up, then. ‘Really, Uncle? A logic joke was the best you could manage?’

‘I’d hoped she’d marry an Italian, Jamie: one Dario Ferio, say.’

‘Charles! Don’t be more absurd than you must. You were sufficiently decorative when we were all of us young – not so decorative as Crispin was … _then_ – but decorative enough. Until you opened your mouth.’

‘And Barbara was sufficiently uninterested until there were mercenary reasons –’

‘Mummy, what do you mean by saying Uncle Charles was “decorative”?’

Before Connie could answer her daughter, James intervened. ‘You’d call it “fit”, Hetts. “Decorative” _does_ apply to more than just Dresden figures.’

‘Oh. Was Uncles Charles as fit as –’

‘ _Hetty._ Really, child….’

‘I was only going to say –’

‘Don’t. We’re all of us boring the Rector, in any case. As a High Churchman, Rector, you no doubt sing? You may count upon being dragooned into the Village Concert, then, and quite possibly the Panto.’

‘Oh, I’m resigned to singing at the Village Concert already.’

‘Hmm. _Lieder?_ “Hybrias the Cretan”?’

The duke was mischievous. ‘Usher, perhaps? Drake?’

Noel carefully did not rejoice in Lady Crispin’s look of shock, or stay to wonder whether it were directed more towards him or towards the duke. ‘Well, hardly that, Charles. The Breener and I –’

‘He’s _so_ fit,’ murmured Hetty.

‘– went ’round Magna this afternoon; I came to know Simon Kellow, down the Boar. My sort of publican, I must say – and my sort of public house. He spotted me as a Wulfrunian from the off.’

‘He’s a downy bird, Padre, is Kellow. And he damned well ought to have spotted you: when he was a lad, he … oh. _Really._ ’

Fr Paddick winked.

‘Northern Soul, Padre? Well. It’s an idea. Rather an interestin’ link – tell you about it later. I wonder….’

‘At the very least, Charles,’ said Fr Paddick, all sweet reason, ‘you’d have something else to sing. OC Smith, say; or – there was even a Mel Tormé song that was popular at the Catacombs: I’d know, Mum and Dad were part of the very last wave of it all.’

‘Like being back in the States,’ said the duke. ‘Very much the same thing as what they call Carolina Beach Music. The Americans,’ said he, severely, ‘have a very different usage of the word “shag” to ours.’

‘Charles!’

‘Refers to a style of six-count swing dance, in American, Con.’ He turned to Noel. ‘Put the idea up to Maguire, Gates, Huskisson, and Mirza, and see what they make of it, Padre.’

‘Oh, I’d intended that already. You’re the one compared us to a boyband….’

‘Sher Mirza’s _so_ fit,’ said Hetty, dreamily. ‘And Teddy looks _precisely_ like –’

‘That is _quite_ enough,’ said Lady Crispin, reprovingly.

‘Take a snap,’ murmured James to Fr Paddick. ‘She’ll want a poster of you lot for her room.’

‘James!’

‘Sorry, Mums.’

* * *

 

Creating a Thoroughly British, completely non-alcoholic, and effectively halal or kosher-style set of dishes for an alternate menu is the sort of thing that challenges chefs, hipster or otherwise. Fortunately, Teddy loved a challenge, adored Edmond, did not believe in limiting market share, and cared deeply for his friends, and had thus faced and conquered that challenge: wherefore they dined with him, as often as not, in a private room where the punters could not stare at them as they dined – but could say they’d seen them at dinner when they boasted to friends of their Delightful, Out of the Way _Discovery_ of The Woolford.

‘I t’ink,’ said The Breener, swallowing an absurdly large bite of mutton, ‘yon Noel Paddick has an idea for t’e concert.’

‘Does he?’ Edmond seemed unimpressed. ‘The duke is pushy enough, we don’t want a pushy rector. I can tell already, that man, lovely as he is, has Control Issues. As in, he insists upon _having_ control. Which could be fun in – sorry, sorry, never mind.’

Sher kept his eyes on his plate – he knew if he looked up he’d glare at Edmond – but he spoke clearly enough. ‘Just lost his wife, didn’t he? And … I know, slightly, the assistant organist at St Peter Wolvo: well, _Net_ -know him. He –’

‘Smitten,’ said Edmond, fondly. ‘Already emailing organists half a country away to ask about –’

‘Hush, love,’ said Teddy. ‘Go on, Sher.’

‘When he was small. Noel Paddick, I mean. He wasn’t a healthy child. Spent ages in and out of hospital. So.’

‘Jaysus. No wonder t’e maneen prefers t’ be in control o’ t’ings, but. Sure and I’d be t’e same, if I’d spent m’ life as a lad wit’ t’ings controlling _me_.’

* * *

Mgr Folan – Fr Paddick had correctly and immediately sized him up as a man who, for all his appearance of mild helplessness, had been made a Chaplain to His Holiness and given his monsignor’s title for good cause – was no fool. Far from it.

As The Breener drove him back to Beechbourne, he was engaged in proving that point, although he’d no need to labour it for The Breener’s benefit, who knew him of old.

‘All right, my son. Speak.’

‘About what, Monsignor?’

‘The pretence of innocence ill becomes you. What’s this I hear of a quarrel between Sher Mirza and Edmond Huskisson?’

‘Ah. T’at’s…. Well, it’s complicated is what it is, and t’at’s t’e trut’.’

‘Brian….’

‘All right, Monsignor, all right: amn’t I tellin’ you? Our Sher … he’s fallen, and hard, for Feyther Pads, he has. And Edmond knows it, and – well, y’ know Edmond. T’ere’s a mout’ on t’at one, and it’s always in use, but. And it is not the time t’ be plaguing Sher at all, any way.’

‘Yes, my son?’

‘And is it t’e dashboard confessional I’m in? Catch yourself on, Monsignor. Sher … well: he’s never t’ought such a t’ing could happen, but in t’e sort o’ books he doesn’t read – because let’s not lie, love him as we all do, t’e lad’s a lit’rary snob, he is.’

The duke, being a military historian, after all (‘the only intellectual in the hereditary peerage’, had been Mr Tony’s view what time he’d passed the House of Lords Act 1999), had often suggested that Mgr Folan appreciated better than much of the Staff in the Army the uses of a flanking manoeuvre. ‘You, my Breener,’ said the monsignor, ‘are one yourself – and, worse, you hide it beneath inverted snobbery. Half the time when you’re not where you were half expected to be, and people think you’re somewhere else on the pull or on the lash, you’re at home reading and listening to music.’

‘Only Seamus Heaney, and the Dubliners on the stereo.’ The Breener did implausible innocence quite plausibly: but not plausibly enough for his parish priest to be fooled thereby.

‘Oh, of course. Or Somerville and Ross, and cricket memoirs, and the Duckworth Lewis Method on repeat.’ Mgr Folan snorted. ‘Somerville and Ross, indeed…. You don’t even hunt.’

‘Can’t sit a horse t’ese days – and is t’at not a confession for an Irishman to make? T’e knees is all right now for most t’ings, but I can no more ride now t’an I’ll ever play cricket again. I’ve reasons of me own – aside from owning a few shares – for hangin’ about t’e Woolbury Stud.’

Mgr Folan carefully did not mention that he well knew what, or, rather, who, one of those reasons was. ‘And of course that means you don’t own every Sinatra album ever released, or are an expert on swing and trad – and have been since we were in the Schola Cantorum together at Downside; or that you don’t read MacNeice – and Jane Austen, come to that. You’re simply an old, broken-down stage Irishman, aren’t you, Breener, when you’re not being the playboy of the Western world.’

‘Ah, now –’

‘You’ve never sung “Dublin in the Rare Old Time” at the Village Concert, I note.’

‘Well, no, of course not – what d’ y’ take me for, t’en? Is it _me_ t’at’d stand up in front o’ one o’ my best mates, and he a Muslim, a British Pakistani from Leeds, and sing about losin’ a girl to a dark-skinned student?’ The Breener was affronted; indeed, very nearly angry.

‘It is not.’ The attack in flank began, inexorably. ‘Because you have in fact more delicacy than you care to show or admit to, and hidden depths. And Noel Paddick clearly possesses the same; and his still waters, I discern already, run deep. Evidently, Edmond also possesses some depths not otherwise discernible – and to refer to an English poet whom you no doubt must pretend never to have read, your friend Sher Mirza has suddenly found that there are depths unsuspected beneath the ice he’s been skating, and what must seem to him something like Death with his engines set.’

‘Blunden. You’re quotin’ _Blunden_ t’ me. Monsignor, it’s a barrishter y’ ought t’ have been: a _barrishter_. And Clifton put you up for _bein’_ a monsignor for cause, he did, sure: t’ere’s a mitre in your future, t’ere is, if not a great red hat.’

‘If Noel Paddick came over through the Ordinariate, there’d be one for him, first.’

‘Don’t tell him t’at if you wish to remain his friend – nor yet if you’ve any hope of his ever comin’ over.’

‘No: he’s the sort who’d refuse all the more if he thought it in his own interest to give way. A laudably Laudian man. Ambition – well. You, my secretly literate friend, can supply your own tags, from Wolsey to Eliot’s Thomas à Becket. And now, my son, you’ll tell me how far he differs in that virtue to your other friends. Does Sher, for example, think that, if he wants something, it must be wrong?’

‘He would do,’ said The Breener, glumly. ‘But sure and it _is_ wrong if he feels it wrong? T’e maneen takes his religion seriously: would you of all people have him do violence t’ his conscience, let alone our own teachings – and Noel’s conscience and faith both?’

‘Of course not, my son. Would Edmond have them do so?’

‘Chrisht, I don’t know. He just wants everyone t’ be happy, I t’ink – ah, now, y’ needn’t say it. I know, I know: for a _secular_ value of happiness.’

‘Well, then. They are my acquaintances – I think I can call Noel a friend now – but they are none of my flock. They are _your_ friends. And now that you’ve examined what’s beneath this, it is your duty to guide them back to friendship, my son.’

The Breener brought them to a stop outside the small, ugly, brick presbytery that was attached to the Church of Our Lady and St Edith of Wilton, Beechbourne. ‘You’re Socrates in a Roman collar, y’ are. I don’t t’ink I like it.’

Mgr Folan, smiling, fumbled his way out of the car, in his usual Fr Brown role. ‘Don’t say that too loudly, Breener: people will think you’re educated. It’d ruin your image. And we can’t have that, can we – look at how much joy and how much good the maintenance of _their_ images is bringing and doing for your friends.’

The Breener was a very devout son of Holy Mother Church. This did not stop him from glaring at a smirking Mgr Folan.

* * *

‘Charles,’ said his sister-in-law, in her most penetratingly peahen-like tones, ‘I do realise you’re unutterably bored – don’t think me unaware that that quarrel with Kit Trowbridge proceeded in part from your being at a loose end – but must you, each and every year in succession, go to yet more absurd lengths with the Village Concert?’

The duke’s answer was, by ducal standards, subdued, and weary: even as the commonly combative duke had been uncommonly subdued and weary since returning from Sutton Littlecombe. ‘Connie, for a woman whose family ought by rights to understand rural and village life –’

James and Rupert exchanged a glance: if Uncle Charles couldn’t be arsed to fight with The Mums, things were Very Bad Indeed…. This was Rupert’s pigeon: James had made quite enough of the running, of late (not least because James did not mix his metaphors).

‘Uncle Charles.’

‘Yes, Rupert?’

‘Why _is_ the Village Concert so important? Growing up with it as we’ve done – James, you agree? – we take it rather for granted. But other chaps at school don’t seem to have anything like the sort of show we do here.’

‘Ah. Not even your fellow boffiny OS sorts’ve twigged? I _am_ glad, you know, that the two of you chose to be Oppidan Scholars and leave KS places for prospective Collegers who wanted the bursaries and emoluments, and whose family hadn’t the mun, perhaps, otherwise: your grandfather insisted I do the same, although, early on, we were rather scraping to find the fees. (I _do_ wish at least one of you’d chanced to follow me and your father in Cotton Hall – nothing against Jourdelay’s or Hawtrey, but….) Well. Clever as you both are, I should have thought you’d realise this: we have all of us a rent to pay for living. Not least to our neighbours, and specially our humbler neighbours: the more so when we, as landowners, are as much supported by them, economically, as we support them in exchange as employers and patrons and benefactors.’ Charles spoke quietly, urging his nephews to reason, without pyrotechnics or browbeating.

‘Our neighbours, and the punters from as far away as Poole and Reading and Gloucester and Exeter, let alone near neighbours from Bath and Bristol and Sarum, whether at fête, concert, or panto, dap their pence in the bowl precisely because they want to see us – specifically, _us,_ the purportedly great and purportedly good– make fools of ourselves. Oh, there’d be some mun come in in any case; but our revenues for good causes are what they are because the – ah – principal persons of consequence in the district unbend – in Augustan terms, literally condescend (no one _reads_ Pope anymore, or Johnson: appalling) – to amuse them. It’s a very old human habit. It’s the Feast of Misrule. Indeed, as I should hope your Classics masters have taught you, it’s –’

* * *

‘– Saturnalia,’ said Fr Paddick. ‘I understand that, Teddy. But I really cannot participate in a complete Feast of Misrule: not new as I am to the incumbency. In a few years, well … perhaps.’

Noel and The Lads were gathered over tea and cakes (save, as ever, that Sher fasted) at the Rectory.

‘I understand, Father Pads,’ said Teddy, slowly. ‘It’s … it means a lot to the villagers and all. And the duke. In fact, keeping him busy with it means a lot to the villagers, yah? He’s less inclined to other mischief, then.’

‘And I’ll play a part, Teddy. Just not too near the knuckle.’

* * *

‘A very pretty defence, Charles, but I hope you don’t think it moves me at last to take part.’

His sister-in-law, at least, could even now entice the duke to combat, eventually. ‘I’d want a propulsion charge to shift you, Con. Why you refuse to –’

‘Unlike the nest of singing birds I seem to have married into –’

‘Oh, really, Con, none of us in several generations has been up at _Pembroke._ ’ (James and Rupert mouthed silently at one another, ‘No one _reads_ Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ these days…’.)

‘– I cannot sing,’ said Lady Crispin, with an air that suggested she regarded this as an accomplishment to be admired. ‘And I am _not_ doing a comic monologue for the delectation of the villagers.’

‘Connie, we could shove you out on stage simply to _talk_ for three minutes and everyone’d think they’d seen a Joyce Grenfell turn.’

Connie rounded on her sons, who were sniggering. ‘The both of you are far too young to know who that was: giving no excuse for this impertinence.’

‘Mums,’ said James, soothingly. ‘You are aware of the internet? Everyone in our houses has become a fan of Joyce Grenfell, and Frankie Howerd, and Tommy Cooper, and Morecambe and Wise, ever since Uncle Charles first introduced _us_ to them, simply ages ago. Both housemasters are pleased – there’ve even been a few beaks who’ve used them as examples in divs, and not only in History.’

‘In fact,’ added Rupert, ‘there’s a society now, at school, devoted to the history of music-hall and British comedy generally. Uncle Charles gets points for being a member of the same club as Arthur Askey was –’

‘I thank you,’ said the duke.

‘ _And,_ ’ said James with some awe, ‘we’re to be addressed in Lent Half, next year, by Roy Hudd.’

* * *

‘I don’t object to music-hall,’ said Noel. ‘In fact, as this is not a church entertainment, I don’t object to much. I simply mustn’t, in my first months, be too associated with anything from the blue book.’

‘Faith, he’s well up in Max Miller, is t’e Rector.’ The Breener grinned, making a show of surprise. ‘Y’ mentioned – keepin’ t’ music, Feyther – Nort’ern Soul, y’ did.’ His tone was insinuating, inviting confidences.

‘We’ll want the duke for that,’ said Edmond, morosely. ‘Teddy’s a baritone at best – as are you, Breener, try though you may.’

* * *

‘I wash my hands of it,’ said Connie, in tones of a Very Official Declaration. The tones were familiar, not to say, annually heard.

‘You’d have made a splendid prefect of Judaea,’ said Charles, dryly.

Rupert and James exchanged glances: _Every bloody year…._

* * *

‘I think,’ said Noel, ‘we want Charles in any case. It does seem important to him; and I think he wants the occupation.’

‘He does t’at. Chrisht – savin’ your rev’rence – t’e whole o’ t’e District does. Look at it t’is way, Feyther Pads. August Bank Holiday’s t’e fête – and t’at gets us into September, and t’at’s a busy mont’ in any year, whatever. T’en t’e first Sunday in October’s t’e Harvest Festival. T’ere’s Bonfire Night, sure, if you’re a Prod, and Remembrance Sunday; and t’en it’s Advent and Chrishtmas, but. T’e Village Concert’s more nor a jape in all t’at; isn’t it our last gaiety before Remembrance Sunday and t’e “wee Lent” of Advent?’

‘And,’ said Edmond, ‘from September on, there’s only the preparations for the Hunt to distract the bugger, with cricket ending. And keeping Charles distracted is a Good Thing, and the sole hope for the rest of us if we at all want any peace in our lives.’

* * *

‘James? Please, do come in. Tea? And shall I clear these gentlemen out?’

‘No, Padre. Actually, I mean, Yes, to tea, please, and No, I’m actually happy you’re all here. I’m sorry to have turned up without warning….’

‘Is everything all right?’ Sher was as swift in concern, and as given to avuncular solicitude, as were Noel and the others, and just beat them to the asking.

‘I’m fine – slice of lemon only, please, Father. Are you at all talking-over the Village Concert?’

‘Yah,’ said Teddy. ‘Shrewd lad.’

‘Hardly that; but I’m glad. You’re all, I think I can say, friends to – at least he considers you to be – or at least you’re well-disposed towards Uncle Charles….’

‘Yes.’ Sher was uncompromising. ‘We _all_ are. I know I may have given cause for doubt.’

‘Never to me, sir,’ said James, very much on his dignity, and striving for – and pulling off – a gravity and maturity beyond his years. ‘I’m worried.’

‘About Charles?’

‘Yes, Father. He takes his responsibilities very seriously, you know. I’m very fond of Kit and Peregrine and Jazz and Jules…. But, aside from a little light estate management and a bugger of a lot – sorry, Padre – a great deal of local cricket for Kit and Pezza, they, well, don’t. I mean, they don’t take a good deal of responsibility, let alone take it seriously. They’ve a _rentier_ mentality.’

Edmond, irrepressibly, stage-whispered, ‘Apparently an Eton education’s worth the fees.’ Teddy elbowed him rather briskly in the brisket.

Ignoring Edmond’s wheezing cries for Teddy to be handed a red card, James went on. ‘The problem with Uncle Charles…. I think, sometimes, he got a double portion of responsibility: his, and what ought to have been Father’s. I _know_ he overdoes it, rather, with the fête, and the village do, and all that. But. Uncle Charles…. He wants to be kept busy.’

‘“Overdoes it a bit”? _James,_ ’ said Edmond, with more seriousness than was commonly his portion. ‘Your uncle – look. A few years before I arrived here, he had Dame Vera Lynn as the surprise musical guest at the Village Concert, and that was only because he knew she was otherwise booked for Remembrance Sunday. _Last_ year, it was ruddy Jethro Tull in a one-day-only. He’s managed over the years to get everyone from the Sarum Consort to Cliff Richard to Bernard Cribbins, to be the Mystery Guest at fête or concert or service – and had Brian Bleedin’ Blessed down to teach a day of Shakespeare to Sher’s forms. The man once commandeered the science wing for a combined lecture and concert: not even the Headmaster knew until it started that the guest physics lecturers were also _performing …_ and were Brian Cox and Brian May. He’s somehow talked stars from Barry Cryer to Ken Dodd to Ken Branagh into playing dame in the village panto for scale: we’re not likely to forget the year Ronnie Corbett played Widow Twankey. I mean, it’s as well, because otherwise I’d be forced to do it every year, we can’t possibly drag – ha! – Sher into doing it, we tried once until we realised how incredible he looks in a dress –’

James, who possessed wholly his uncle’s gifts of observation, and The Breener, Who Missed Nothing, saw something complex flicker for the fraction of a second in Fr Paddick’s eyes: it might have been a guilty interest; it was much more probably the jar of too-new memory, the realisation of how very much like the Rector’s late wife Sher should look in drag.

‘– and then,’ went on Edmond, obliviously, ‘there was this whole dust-up with the Bishop, the reconciliation, and that absolute _enthronement_ they put together, the two of ’em, for Father Pads’ installation. I’d say your uncle is kept quite busy enough.’

‘But he _isn’t,_ sir. He’s – thwarted. Look at that – that _débâcle absolue_ with Kit.’

‘French war memoirs,’ smiled The Breener, in perfect mimicry of the duke: ‘No one _reads_ French war memoirs nowadays: extraord’n’ry….’

James ignored this, wisely. ‘I don’t think you quite understand, actually. He fought to get the Rector he – _we_ – wanted; and he has got him. And he’ll stand aside now and let you, sir, do your job. Remembrance Sunday, and the Harvest Festival, and all that: they’re set, and sacrosanct. The Village Concert and, now we’ve a Rector, next year’s fête … no _scope_ in them.

‘It’s not common. I know that. We’re not a brainy lot as a rule, our sort. I suppose that’s why most of the hereditaries were booted from the Lords. But Uncle Charles is – he’s a sport. I mean –’

‘We understand,’ said Noel, with a smile. ‘We’re none of us OEs, but we did do Biology.’

James blushed, and Noel reproached himself.

‘I think,’ said Sher, gently, very much the schoolmaster, ‘the Rector meant that as a joke in deprecation of us, not of you.’ Noel’s look of gratitude was open.

‘Yes; all right,’ said James. ‘The thing is, Uncle Charles is different. He ought to be running a country – one with an empire attached.’ Noel and The Lads silently contemplated the Stuart record as rulers, and the Grafton Ministry, and carefully did not shudder visibly.

James evidently felt the implied reproach all the same. ‘Pelham and Newcastle weren’t the worst PMs we’ve had,’ said he. ‘But never mind them. Think about Uncle Charles, himself, as you know him, in, say, Salisbury’s Downing Street, or Palmerston’s – or Winston’s, actually. Whatever your politics, whatever sort of fist you think he’d’ve made of it, that’s the sort of job the _scope_ of which would just suit Uncle Charles. And instead he’s reduced to country entertainments and managing an estate that very nearly runs itself … and writing books – which is fine, only he writes too well and too quickly, and has such a memory he spends less time in research than you’d think, so it’s too easy for him and leaves him at a loose end.’

This time it fell to Fr Paddick, whose schoolboy reading had been not a little influenced by Fr Pryor, to mimic the duke. ‘Astonishing that no one reads Buchan these days. _John Macnab,_ it’s all in _John Macnab._ ’

James grinned, then grew solemn once more. ‘Once this Church Hall renovation kerfuffle is done and dusted, he’ll rack himself to pieces. It …I mean, had he had a wife, and children. But there’s nothing he or anyone can do for – or with – Father; and although he and The Mums have this comedy double-act of theirs, with much sniping back and forth, she really isn’t in want of much advice, and she’d not take it if she were. Least of all from Uncle Charles. And – unfortunately – Rupes and Hetty and I give very little trouble, and he’s too … decent? Acutely conscious of the forms? I don’t know. It may be _because_ he and Father don’t get on that he’s always careful to remember we’re Father’s children, not his; or perhaps it’s deference to The Mums. But there it is. He hasn’t friends, actually – no, I’m not … I don’t mean to insult you, any of you. It’s only that…. I don’t know….’

‘Charles doesn’t fuss over being a duke,’ suggested Noel, ‘doesn’t remember it, half the time; but the rest of us – I, whom he appointed to these livings, Sher, who’s ultimately employed by him in a way, Edmond, whom he sheltered, Teddy, in whom he invested, and The Breener – can’t forget it?’

‘Well, yes, partly, actually. But. Do you know, outside formalities and what’s left of the Season, none of his old housemates and chaps who were up at the House with him ever really see him? He hardly knows their wives and children: I suppose because, for one, country house parties are largely a thing of the past – they come too dear, I suppose – and a bachelor is an awkward guest, really, odd numbers and all that. Many of them love to see him briefly; not a few like to get together and listen to him, particularly those interested in history; or cricket, or railways. But – I don’t care how much dosh they’re rolling about in, either – they always meet him somewhere, and he usually picks up the tab or signs the chit at his club, or _they_ stop with _him,_ at Wolfdown, and no one ever thinks, “Do you know, Charles might like more than anything to come here and stop for a bit and simply rusticate with the family, be part of it for a time” – not even old friends whose children he’s stood godfather to. And no one ever asks him to anything _fun,_ bar shoots and hunt meets and First Class matches: they think, I suspect, he’d decline: “Oh, we couldn’t ask Charles, he’s too clever for us, he’d be bored, we couldn’t keep him entertained, no point in asking”…. Well. He _is_ bored, he’s really the loneliest man I’ve ever met, and it’s killing him.

‘ _I_ can’t do anything; no more can Rupes. You can, if you will. Could you – _would_ you – oh, _include_ him in things, please?’ James blushed. ‘I’m not supposed to know this, and I feel as if I’m betraying a confidence, but some secrets oughtn’t to be kept: not if it endangers someone. Uncle Charles simply could not, ever, make away with himself: I think we all know that. But he’s not as young as he was, and, well: grandfather always kept fit, and _his_ father was a fanatic for it, and both of them managed even so to die in the end of heart trouble. And I know at least one of you knows what Kit said to him – I’m not defending either of them, Kit or Uncle Charles – but: I think it hurt him more than he let on, because it’s just what he’s always feared is true.’

The Breener spoke for them all, just pipping the others at the post. ‘Ah, Jamie, now, of course we will. We’ll be better friends t’ him now – we ought t’ have been better friends before, sure and we ought t’ve. We’ll keep him busy, we will.’

‘Although,’ said Edmond, gently, ‘I don’t see how we can provide him with any new projects of a scope worthy of his energy, lad. Unless he wants to take over Wilts CCC and try turning it into a First Class County side, or put up a stadium in Tisbury and aim for the Premier League.’

‘He could always,’ said Teddy, even more slowly than commonly, ‘stand for some local office.’

‘Er….’

‘Yah, I know.’

‘It’s a pity he didn’t read Law – not that I suppose he’d’ve wished to be another Michael Ancram,’ said Fr Paddick. ‘But I think the Diocese may soon be in want of a new Chancellor – His Honour Judge Cundick is getting on in years – but of course that wants a lawyer.’

Sher, brooding, shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing to offer – not now. But I don’t know that that’s important. What’s important is that we be his friends. I’m sh- – rubbish at that, but I’ll try: with the duke, and with you lads as well. I’ve no excuse for not trying better before now.’ With an air of grudging justice, he added: ‘He’d have made a perfect Viceroy….’

‘That’s all I can ask,’ said James. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted and took up so much time.’

‘You mustn’t be, and you mustn’t think that,’ said Fr Paddick: very much Fr Paddick the Rector now, and not simply Noel. ‘You did well, and I think this could not have waited.’ He recalled, with clarity, what Kit had told Charles; and if Charles believed it to be true….

‘D’ y’ want me t’ run y’ back, Jamie, my maneen?’

‘Oh, no: I’d have walked here as well as back had I not wanted to catch at least Fr Paddick in time.’

‘Which,’ said Noel, ‘is why you’re being run back. With me. I’ve Evensong at Abbas quite soon enough, and The Breener is kindly driving me. Come along. Gentlemen: shall we meet tomorrow for a working luncheon, when I’m done with Mattins at St Aldhelm?’

‘I’ll lay it on at my shop,’ said Teddy, in voice that brooked no contradiction. ‘You three get cracking. Rose can see us out.’

‘Actually, she can’t – it’s an off day –’

‘ _Go,_ ’ said Sher, with a roll of his eyes. ‘We’ll wash up and let ourselves out.’

As they walked to the waiting Breenermobile, James asked, ‘What’s the Abbas service tonight, Padre?’

Noel carefully suppressed a smile. Young James’ view of his uncle as a hero to be emulated was not terribly well-hidden. ‘Dyson in F. Do you know it?’

‘I do. I quite like that one.’

‘Thank God Charles is a basso, for the solo in the _Nunc dimittis._ Well, if you like, ring Lady Crispin as we go and we’ll shove you – and Rupert, if he sings at all, as I know you do, although your brother ought at least to attend in any case – into the choir, which is a bit thin. It _is_ your home parish: be glad it’s not Crucis or Magna, which are my next stops tonight in order: Ebdon in C, and Sumsion in D. Tomorrow’s Crucis, then Magna, then Abbas: Nares in F, Sumsion in A, and dear old Stanford in C. Then, the day after, Bairstow in D at Magna, first, then –’

‘You really want a car, Father.’

The Breener laughed. ‘Jaysus, hasn’t he an Irish Cat’lic for an unpaid driver? But do not y’ worry, m’ Jamie, if I’m at all knowin’ your Uncle Charles –’

James laughed. They _all_ knew precisely what Uncle Charles was bound to do.

* * *

‘Rector,’ said Sir Thomas. He was evidently uncomfortable with what he felt he must say, but determined to say it. ‘I’m worried for Charles. Man does too much.’

Having only that afternoon been told the duke was slowly going mad from having too little to do, Noel restricted himself to raising a politely interrogatory eyebrow.

‘No, I don’t quite mean that,’ said Sir Thomas. ‘What I mean is, he’s wasting his time. Spreads himself too thin, and on little things. I don’t mean the Hunt and things. But the Free School and village entertainments and the Church – damn it – sorry, un-damn – I don’t mean the _Church_ is a small thing, or the school, for that matter: but all the fiddling things Charles _does,_ are. And things I should think he shan’t now do, so far as Church matters go, now you’re here to do it as he wishes. _Hope_ he shan’t go on plaguing the parish as he has done: vexing for you as well, I’d think, with him looking over your shoulder, although he’d want a step-ladder to do that. But there it is. The man wants something big and absorbing. Since Caroline died, I’ve felt it already myself: there’s such a lot of _time_ to fill. If we’d a canal in want of restoration, say, and no money and no volunteers, that’d suit Charles down to the ground. He’s fiddling about with that damned model railway when he wants to be challenged to run one – God knows he’d sort FGW in three months, and they’re in want of it. But we can hardly buy him a railway.’

Fr Paddick held his peace. He’d the ghost of an idea; but ghostly counsel for his host came first. ‘I imagine you’re right. But I want to know, first, how _you_ are holding up. You say there’s a deal of time to fill – I remember that all too well, myself.’

‘Yes: I imagine you do. Does it go away?’

‘Not entirely as yet. But it’s not quite nine months, you know. And I have, by God’s Grace, more than enough to fill my days.’

‘Yes…. I suppose the nights are the problem. Mine are. Charles suggested I might get stuck in with the PCC, but I can’t think you’d welcome that, just when you may have got shot of Charles.’

‘Think again, Sir Thomas. We want you – very much indeed.’

‘Well, we’ll see. But about Charles, now. You and I know, now, what it is to be a widower; poor old Charles never got _that_ far. Frankly, Connie was a fool: picked the wrong brother. Good Lord, Caroline – they were at Roedean together – Caroline used to say Connie’d live with that mistake all her life: not that I suppose Charles’d’ve taken Connie on had she offered. Well, she set her cap for Crispin instead – and Rupert, James, and that little hellion, Hetty, came of it, at least: what’s that verse about good coming of evil? Fact remains. With the possible exception of young Mirza – I may be a fool, Rector, but I’m not a da- – not an utter fool: nothing’ll come of this absurd business with Gwen Evans – possibly excepting young Mirza, then, Charles must be the loneliest soul in the country ’round.’

* * *

Noel and The Lads were agreed that there was no point in planning how to be better friends to Charles Taunton; it must simply be _done._ Talking about it was pointless.

Talking over the Village Concert, by contrast, was indispensably necessary and increasingly urgent.

‘Normally,’ said Edmond, ‘we’d have you in _ex officio,_ Father Pads, as we did Giles Wyndham, because the Crucis Church Hall is always spoke for us. But I hear the repairs won’t be done in time this year, after all. In any case, the Rector is always involved in the dispositions of the proceeds to charities – I hope you know you’re on every board we have. And, as you sing….’

‘Any thoughts what you’ll sing?’ Teddy’s eyes were knowing.

‘There are,’ said Noel, ‘a few – but very good – popular songs that wouldn’t disgrace my cloth. Not so surprising, really, when you consider how many popular artists on the other side of the Pond came out of the Black churches – Nonconformist, obviously.’

‘Yah,’ said Teddy. ‘“Rescue Me” is pretty much a Gospel number.’

‘Yes. And so, very nearly, is a Northern Soul classic. Jackie Wilson. “Higher and Higher”, you know.’

Sher gave a low whistle.

‘“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You, My Lad”?’ The duke – who had turned up out of sheer restlessness, really, and unwillingness to stop at home and _brood_ – had an infuriating habit of turning up unexpectedly pat upon unmeant cues. ‘No one _reads_ Monty James, nowadays. Extraordinary. May I join you? I don’t mean to be – speaking of ghost stories, which Buchan did quite as well as did James – the Watcher at the Threshold, but I understand there’s some Village Concert planning? I’ve settled the date, by the way: Friday, 25 October. Long Leave for Michaelmas Term, so that Rupert and James may be general dogsbodies. I’m very sorry to say, however, that we’ll _not_ have the Church Hall ready by then, after all, due to some additions to the project to commemorate Caroline Douty: I’m making other arrangements.’

‘Of course you may come in,’ said Teddy, warmly. ‘Have you fed?’

‘I’ll ha’ had my tay,’ said Charles, with what he clearly thought a smile. ‘You lads go on; I’ll listen. Unless – _am_ I in the way?’

‘No.’ Sher’s reply was quick, and rather sharp. ‘Never.’ He seemed to realise his tone was slightly off, and spoke with a casual earnestness when he went on. ‘I’ve been looking out things we could all do together – Northern Soul, as Fr Paddick suggested – and we want a basso. I thought, perhaps, for one, “Hold Back the Night”: and someone with a deeper voice than Teddy’s or The Breener’s wants to do the “Hold it”s for that. You’re indispensable, now.’

‘Mm.’ The duke was too polite to make it wholly clear how unconvinced he was of his welcome. ‘So long as I’m not barging in as usual so as not to give chaps the _chance_ to avoid me. I wasn’t, in fact, raised by wolves – I know, I know, “no one reads Kipling any more” – but somehow I do manage to combine the qualities of Wellington _and_ Peel: no manners _and_ no small talk. Go on. Rector, you were planning a Jackie Wilson solo, which I make certain shall be excellent. Sher?’

‘Soloing? I told you I’d been thinking of some old-school R&B. I thought, maybe, Gregory Abbott?’

‘“Shake You Down”? That’ll have knickers on stage, particularly coming from you. Padre? Is there – is that not all right?’

‘It’s – fine,’ said Noel.

‘Is it, though?’ Sher was as concerned as was the duke. ‘Oh. Was that – ?’

‘It wasn’t “our song” or anything – as you say, it is old-school.’ The duke, listening to Noel, reflected that he’d been three years down from Oxford when the single in question had charted; and these lads, only just born.

Noel went on, his colour returning. ‘It was a favourite of Pauline’s mum’s. That’s all. I’m sorry, it was just an unexpected shock. It’s fine; don’t mind me.’

The duke was cursing himself for a fool for not having thought to have brought Noel’s former parents-in-law down for the induction. The Breener was wondering, for the first time, if Feyther Pads was telling t’e whole trut’, now, and wasn’t t’ere somet’ing more whatever in it?

‘All right,’ said Sher, warily, his eyes more than ever those of a stricken doe. ‘Edmond?’

‘Oh, I don’t know! Solos…. Teddy won’t let me do anything _I_ suggested.’

Sher, Teddy, and The Breener weren’t going to let that pass without a piss-take.

‘“Somewhere, Over the Rainbow”?’

‘“It’s Raining Men”?’

‘Smokey’s “Cruisin’“?’

‘“My Heart Belongs to Daddy”?’

Noel had buried his head in his hands – but the shaking of his shoulders gave him away.

‘Are you _quite_ finished?’ Edmond’s outrage was only partly _mock._

The duke sped the shaft. ‘“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, perhaps?’

Edmond gasped – and remembered that he’d resolved to begin treating the duke as simply another friend. ‘Oh, fuck you very much, Charles.’ He held his breath for a moment; there was no explosion. ‘Given my life, if there were a woman in the district who could sing proper, I’d cover Mika’s “Popular Song”.’

‘Your mum’s too nice for you to do “Elle Me Dit”,’ drawled Teddy. ‘Mind, you _are_ golden….’

‘Well, come back to that,’ said the duke. ‘You lads can thrash all that out. I’m doing Flanders and Swann, personally. “Madeira”, I suppose: I can’t hope that anyone’d suspend disbelief long enough to imagine my waiting on the gas man.’

‘And is it not yourself as wouldn’t recognise a g-nu?’

‘G-naturally g-not, Breener mine.’

‘Wait,’ said Sher. ‘You’re forgetting the perfect one for you.’

‘Brunel Room and all,’ added Noel.

‘Oh.’ The duke ducked his head. ‘Well. Yes. I _am_ the slow train not to have thought of that. It’s an ill wind that blows no good to anyone. That’s settled, then. Now – because I mustn’t keep you – is there anything, aside from The Trammps, you want me for in the Northern Soul set?’

‘Futures, Drifters, Tams, Platters, Temptations – Jaysus, Charles, y’ t’ink it’s us can do it, whatever we choose, but wit’ you?’

‘Very well, Breener. I’ll leave you to it … you part-time party men,’ said the duke, rising. ‘Do let me know your choices in time for me to clear the rights. Oh, and Huzza? You could always sing some Junior Walker to Teddy: “I Ain’t Going Nowhere (Unless I Go Wit’ You).”

The duke made for the door, but was intercepted by Teddy, who wrapped him in a hug that had caused envy in an octopus. The others could see the panic in the duke’s eyes: not at being hugged by another man, let alone one whom he knew to be anything but heterosexual, but, rather, at being hugged at all. That sort of thing simply didn’t happen in his experience; but Teddy was determined that it should, and often, and that Charles was damned well going to come to like it.

‘Let Charles breathe, Teddy,’ said Fr Paddick, taking the ducal arm and steering him out into the passage. ‘Charles,’ added he, quietly. ‘I should like to call and speak with you the day after tomorrow. Before Evensong? Good. Thank you.’

An unwontedly bewildered duke saw himself out.

‘Well,’ said Edmond, brightly. ‘That went well.’

Sher could only laugh, brokenly.

* * *

_Well,_ the duke reflected. _As they_ are _going forrards with that, I’m glad I’ve a Northern comic coming as our non-musical Mystery Guest. At least the good Kellow’ll be happy._

* * *

Sher had gone to the loo. Edmond took the opportunity to observe that it was a pity he’d hooked up with Kit Trowbridge three years prior: ‘If only Charles Taunton were gay, instead – he’s not, I suppose? It’d be two birds with one stone.’ Fr Paddick didn’t even bother to wonder that everyone knew the whole story.

‘And a good t’ing it is, Sher not to be here now. Because – have y’ never seen t’e duke look at Gwen Evans, at all? It’s a look says, If I wasn’t ould enough t’ be your feyther, it’s a rampageous duchess y’ might’ve made, lass. Not t’at he’d’ve done anyt’ing even were t’ey of an age, t’e poor wee duke. Shyer nor a novice, that man.’ The Breener was fortunate in his friends: they did not take note of the fact that The Breener had clearly taken note; much less wonder why it was so.

* * *

‘Madness, I tell you,’ said Edmond.

Teddy blinked, slowly. ‘We could cover “Our House”….’

* * *

In the ensuing weeks, this other Eden, demi-paradise, vindicated its name: things settled in, not least with the arrival of jocund, plump Tim Campion, a man made for merriment, his jolly wife Charmian, and their children, Cressida, Piers, and Nigel, the elder marked down already for the Free School and Young Nigel for the last year at the village school under Miss Coombs and Miss Woolley before joining his siblings; and all three were rather – although they naturally pretended otherwise – looking forwards to it. It were hard to say whether Fr Paddick or Old Miss Hart was the more relieved to have Tim Campion in; the latter, certainly, had hoped long since to retire from the keyboard, and knew that the organs, and a fuller choir direction than she’d ever felt herself competent to attempt, were in good hands, now. (Better still, the refurbishments at Magna should be complete before the choirs came back from their hols.) And the choir in Abbas breathed the easier knowing that Tim and Charmian should now supply the role the duke had been filling as locum.

The duke, typically, had made certain before ever he lured Tim Campion away that the new organist was also capable of bowling spin for the Second XI, this allowing the duke in turn to cap to the First XI young Geoff Bungay at last.

Equally, Sher – whose temper had improved mightily with and after Eid, and the end of his fasting (not least because Charles and Nobby had arranged that he go up to London and stop with his uncle from the day before _Laylat al-Qadr_ through Eid, and had also arranged that his parents and sisters go up to town for Eid as well and join them) – had been surprised into making a friend in Tim Campion; with whom, from talking incessant and involuted organists’ shop, he had imperceptibly been drawn to speak of deeper things and deeper worries.

‘Everything he does, Tim. I mean, yes, when I first saw him, I was bowled over. But I could have got over that. It’s every day since…. Everything he does. And of course that’s the bugger of it, because it’s all bound up with everything he _is._ ’

‘My dear fellow.’ Tim was more than ever like a lay, Anglican redaction of Mgr Folan in manner and quick sympathy. ‘I do see that, really. I know as well as Charmian does – and she’s listened to enough silliness from ladies in the congregation, back in Wolvo, when Noel was younger even than he is now – and you’re both young; I’m but little older, but marriage and three kiddies _age_ a man so – the number of people who’ve had a pash on Noel Paddick…. You’d hardly credit it, unless and until you’d met the man. And of course part of it’s always bound up with the collar and the cassock. Forbidden fruit and all that.’

‘Tim…. Even in a cassock, the man is sex on legs –’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ grinned Tim.

‘– but, I swear to God, when he’s out for his run…. I don’t like early mornings, but that’d be enough to get me out of bed and to a window to creep him, if I didn’t feel filthy over it.’

‘But….’

‘Yes. _But._ It’s that he’s so _good._ Charm? The man could charm an asp.’ Sher ducked his head. ‘And he’s so decent…. You know we’re all getting Clumber puppies from the duke?’

‘Yes, I ought to have come down here months ago, the kids’d love one.’

‘I’m sure Charles is already planning on giving them one from the next litter. You’ve met Hetty?’

Tim laughed. Indeed he had done. ‘She’s a crush on both of you, _and_ Teddy, and Edmond, and that mad Irishman.’

‘The other day, I’d been to Wolfdown House, to socialise with Ernestine – my puppy – and her dam; and ran into Father Pads, coming in as I was leaving, and him on the same errand with his dog-pup. And as I was leaving, I heard Hetty going on and James teasing her, and do you know what she said? She said, “Father Paddick is holding a puppy: your argument is invalid”.’

‘Lor’,’ laughed Tim. ‘Teenagers and the Internet.’

‘Yeah, but. I knew what she meant. He’s not only wildly sexy, he’s very dear, and the decency simply shines from him. And I know it’s all bound up in what and who he is.’

‘That is a problem. Look here, I know Noel pretty well. And….’

‘I know he’s straight, just to make things more hopeless than they were. But –’

‘Not what I was going to say. If he weren’t a priest…. There’s not another man I can think of who’d accommodate a friend he cared for deeply – and he does love you, in his way – by … expanding his horizons.’

‘Tim, it’s cruel to give me hope.’

‘No. I’m not done. Because even as a layman, what he’d never do is accommodate even a friend he loves deeply, in being false to himself.’

Sher slumped in his chair. ‘Yeah. I know. I wouldn’t wish him to be less than himself, either. And the problem is, he _knows_ what Islam asks of me, just as well as he knows what your religion asks of all of you.

‘None of which helps me when I’m crazy in love with the man. I keep hoping that somehow, Gwen Evans will steal my heart….’

‘As long as she knows what you’re trying on, Sher: it’d be cruel to give _her_ hope.’

‘She does know. She’s been a brick. I suppose the Rector’s the only person in the district isn’t painfully aware of my feelings for him, although everyone’s been too polite to mention it.’

‘Mm.’

‘Tim?’

‘I know him. He’s more than simply a kind, decent man. He’s clever _and_ wise. And he’s not only a priest of the C of E, he’s an Anglo-Catholic priest: he’s heard more confessions than you’ve had hot dinners, my boy. There’s a difference between what he knows officially, and what he _knows._ ’

‘Oh, cock.’

‘Keep your hair on, O Quiffed One. It’s to spare everyone the embarrassment he does it. So, chin up, and let God work it out.’

‘Yours or mine?’

‘Man, I’m an organist, not a theologian. All I know is both our creeds begin the same way: “I believe in _one_ God” – or as the Jews put it, “The Lord our God, the Lord is One”. That’s enough to be going on with, surely?’

Sher shook his head, rather in dubiety than in negation. ‘I’ll never understand you lot. At least the Jews think only that they alone are specially chosen of Allah. You lot think you’re the _sons_ of Allah: can God have a son? We know that – as in the very names of the father and one of the Companions of the Prophet, on whom be peace – we, whom he made of clay, are his slaves.’

‘And you an English master. Have you never taught _The Tempest_? “What, I say? My foot my tutor?” Or take _Lear._ God’s fathership, my dear fellow, is not precisely modern and indulgent.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Sher, quoting Tim’s words back at him. ‘Never understand it, though. Seems arrogant to me.’

‘Well, then, let’s tackle something you do understand: where, precisely – musically, not theologically –’ Tim grinned, cheekily – ‘am I going wrong in this new descant?’

* * *

The duke, although yet somewhat subdued, grew a bit less morose, particularly when he returned from the Glorious Twelfth with a bag more than sufficient to supply Wolfdown House and to make Teddy and his guests at The Woolford very happy indeed. The choirs were released to rest and hols. And at last, on August Bank Holiday Weekend, the fête arrived.

It was a fine, fair day, with a few fluffy clouds gambolling above the downs in mimesis of the sheep upon them. The full of the Summertide was upon the land, in oils that might have been painted by Constable: Positively the Last View (roll up! Come and see the show!) before the subtle change to Autumn’s stained glass, and the yearly succession, after, to pen and ink and wash in Winter and the pastels of Springtide. Vast marquees had sprung up on the Wolfdown House lawns, like a fairy ring, and the duke presided like a kindly god, his cheer as always restored by this sort of thing. He’d indulged, of course, his tricks of the old rage: in addition to the inevitable performance by the Wurzels, he’d brought down Gypsy Fire and Bellowhead as well (to Hetty’s bitter disappointment, she being assured in her own mind that Uncle Charles, if he chose, could wave a hand and make One Direction magically appear for her delectation). And then, of course….

The tannoy was booming. ‘… And we’re the –’

Teddy Gates, the celebrated Hipster Chef and proprietor and presiding genius of The Woolford Hotel (wearing, with amusement, his birthday-gifted tee-shirt, reading ‘’Ow Bist, Hipsterrr’), rounded upon the duke, wide-eyed at the presence of his telly heroes.

‘You … brought them _here_. For a cookery demonstration. _At_ the village _fête_.’

Charles simply smirked.

‘… and if Teddy “Hipsta Chef” Gates is in the crowd, and ’d join on us on stage, that’d be mintin’!’

The duke raised an eyebrow. ‘ _Do_ go on, Gates, you daft bugger.’

‘Today, we’re doin’ summat with cider, Bath chap, and Wiltshire-cure gammon….’

Charles chuckled as Teddy, long legs churning, dashed for the stage and leapt onto it like the rock star he was at heart: smile like fifty Osmonds, and dimples now deeper, with it, than Cheddar Gorge. Edmond, Sher, The Breener, Mr Kellow, Fr Paddick, Tim Campion, and Mgr Folan simply fell about, laughing – not least because, here at the fête, as Teddy’d clearly forgotten, his wild locks weren’t held back by one of his hipster bandanas, but by a flower crown that Hetty had, laughing, placed on his head as he’d knelt to her height. Even the ranks of Viney could scare conceal a smile.

* * *

The thing had gone with a roar from start to finish. The first day of the fête had been a roaring success: the tombola had gone down a bomb, the duke’s pigs and horses and sheep and cattle had been much admired, and the Name That Ewe portion of the proceedings had been, as ever, the highpoint of the day. No one had been sick on the grounds, the ducks in the ornamental water had been disturbed only by one person’s managing to fall in, and the Silver Band had remained largely sober until after they’d done playing. Only Charles Taunton could have managed, as well, to have had the stall for face-painting the sprogs, manned by Sir Bennett Salmon RA.

Miss Coombs had told fortunes; Old Miss Hart had run the jumble (a proleptic one adumbrating the great February Three-Parish Jumble to come, which had over the years shifted more unwanted Christmas gifts and unfortunate cardies than might be thought) with an iron hand; Dr Witchard had inveigled the purchase of more white elephants than Thailand could boast. The stall for smashing old crockery had been thronged (the duke had openly hoped his domestics weren’t Getting Ideas); The Breener had gone to ground in the beer tent, with a truly Irish thirst. Mr Viney’s quiz, at which he was amusingly spelled by Rupert and James, had resolved itself into an epic battle, on increasingly obscure local topics, between Sir Thomas Douty and Bungay the fruiterer – who won. (Charles had last participated in a quiz in ’89, before he’d succeeded to the dukedom: it had degenerated into a lengthy debate between him and a Cambridge don who’d happened to be summering in the district, over the Dunkirk ‘Halt Order’: which had then rumbled on for a good two years in various academic journals and the proceedings of numerous learned societies).

George Larence, Gwen Evans, and the duke had presided over pony rides until the dimpsey had finally given way to clear night. Noel had (to Hetty’s sore disappointment, which Sher privately shared) ruled himself out of the races and sprints, which were instead won by Young George Silverthorne (Sher had also declined to compete, on the all too true ground that he ran like a penguin, despite his build).

* * *

The afternoon of the second day had seen the fête brought to another year’s triumphant conclusion: folk- and Morris-dancing (which Charles had conceded as an indult, although he was severely allergic to it: he hated only handbells more), the much-loved Punch and Judy, bowls for the prize of one of Charles’ geese, a dog show, and a limited-overs match – drawn, in the end – between the Woolfonts Combined XI and those cunning rival buggers from Beechbourne. (Calling it a ‘friendly’ was an Orwellian misuse of language.) In place of Evensong in the three Woolfonts, the evening had ended with a nondenominational community service, celebrated by Noel and the Wesleyan minister from Chickmarsh: in Abbas church, the ducal chapel for all its truly ducal expanse being simply too small for the crowd.

Punters from as far afield as Exeter, Reading, Gloucester, and Poole had stumped up manfully, and the proceedings had done very well in the way of proceeds for good causes. Teddy had been walking on air since being taken aside and asked to feature in a coming telly programme with his hirsute foodie heroes; and the villages in a body had gone home tired and happy – and stupefied with gluttony.

* * *

‘I ship them,’ said Hetty, dramatically. Then again, Hetty was of an age to do _everything_ dramatically. ‘I ship them so hard.’

‘What’s this?’

‘I was _saying,_ Uncle Charles, I ship Sher Mirza and the Rector.’

‘To what port or destination?’

‘ _Uncle._ They give me _feels._ ’

Lady Crispin dropped her fork. ‘Henrietta Maria, explain yourself at once! Are you saying the Rector and the English master have interfered with you?’

Rupert rolled his eyes. ‘No, Mums. She thinks they ought to be in a romantic relationship, Father Pads and Sher. That’s “shipping”, from “relationship”.’

‘And,’ said James, wearily – he wondered if he’d survive his sister’s adolescence, sane – ‘the thought of that gives her – let’s say, “happy” – feelings: otherwise, “feels”.’

The duke exchanged an unwontedly commiserating glance with his sister-in-law, and addressed his niece with a certain air of exasperation. ‘What in bu- – what the devil we’re payin’ Cheltenham Ladies’ for in the way of tuition in the English language, I don’t know. Hetty, you have the privilege not only of the divine gift of articulate speech, but of speakin’ the tongue of Milton and Shakespeare. You won the lottery in life simply through bein’ born British, damn it all: an inhabitant of the only sane country on the planet. _Will_ you speak plain English to the rest of us, at least on alternate days of the week? And I remind you, the Rector’s a recent widower, unlikely to take up with any man however handsome.’

‘I’m only fangirling, Uncle.’

‘Don’t pout, it makes you look like a front-bench politician caught fiddling expenses.’

Rupert and James suppressed sighs. The Michaelmas Half – and they left after tea tomorrow, mind – couldn’t start soon enough.

* * *

The investigation [into the attacks upon Sher and his cat], gingered up rather more by Viney’s information than by ducal persistence, dragged on; Sher became somewhat overprotective of Eric, to the latter’s tomcat disgust; and throughout September, with choirs on hols and schoolchildren dreading the imminence of the return to school only to find it surprisingly bearable (as every year, but they never learnt better), the life of the land went on. Wolfdown House and the Dower House sighed with mingled regret and relief at the departure of Rupert, James, and Hetty, for school: a mixed feeling not unshared by the wider community. Noel and The Lads, now augmented by Tim Campion, whose presence relieved Sher of being always at the keyboard (he nowadays brought Eric with him to rehearsals in a basket, which – as Teddy was generous with milk and cheese and fish – suited Eric right down to the ground), prepared for the Village Concert whilst there was time in hand.

The first time Noel, with Tim accompanying (and a backing trio which happened to be composed of Gwen, Charmian Campion, and Dr Emily: the Village Concert was open to all), sang “Higher and Higher”, and flung his falsettos skywards, The Breener was sufficiently impressed to raise an eyebrow; Teddy and Edmond both swallowed, hard; and Sher….

‘Eh-up. Awreet, lad?’ Edmond had stood next him in the makeshift wings, and spoke as one Yorkshireman to another.

‘Yeah,’ breathed Sher, quietly and brokenly. ‘If tha doesn’t count me almost spoonking in me pants.’

It had been at a later rehearsal: another of those at which the duke was _not_ then present: as they larked about – although there’d been a bit of a minefield when Noel had said, offhandedly, that, before he’d shifted to St Peter’s, he as much as Edmond might have identified with the lyrics of ‘Popular Song’, which had caused Sher’s stomach to clench – that Noel had mentioned the scheme he had by then got Charles Taunton and Thomas Douty thoroughly entangled in.

‘Yah,’ said Teddy, who, like everyone else in a thirty-mile radius, already knew this perfectly well and in detail. ‘Be good for them both; and good for the district.’

Tim exchanged a glance with The Breener, whose guitar was ever near to his hand; and The Breener struck a chord, and Tim, grinning, sang the opening lines of ‘People, Get Ready (There’s a Train A-Comin’)’, in which all of them, save Sher, irresistibly, joined.

‘How,’ asked an admiring Sher of Noel, ‘do you _think_ of these things?’

‘Well,’ said Noel, ducking his head. ‘In this job, I tend to have help from a higher power, you know.’

At which point The Breener, sniggering, launched into ‘(Ride the) Mighty High’.

‘Oi,’ protested Sher, ‘if you’re going to turn everything into a church service –’

‘Not at all,’ said an incisive voice from the doorway. The duke strode in at his usual clip. ‘They’re simply “Walking in Memphis”, with Tim, there, as Muriel at the piano – don’t give me that look, you lot, I’ve spent time in the American South, which is more than any of you can say – you included, _Reverend Al_. I’m simply pleased the text of the day isn’t “It’s Money That I Love”. Right, let’s get on with it: what wants a basso? Shall we begin with The Trammps, or with The Futures?’

* * *

Over the ensuing weeks, for all the mucking about, a set-list emerged, and Charles cleared the rights: refusing all blandishments to obtain those for ‘Our House’, for reasons known only to himself. He also engaged a professional backing band; and of course, exulted in keeping to himself the identities of his Surprise Mystery Guests and the compère he’d chosen. (He also firmly declined the idea that the Northern Soul set should be accompanied by slick, onstage, Motown-group moves by the singers, however much he was trying to unbend: ‘No, Edmond, I’m quite certain dukes, as such, _do_ dance on stage after the manner of “Duke” Fakir; this one, however, does _not_ ’.)

Mr Kellow was on board with his well-worn but always popular comic monologue. The Lads were all well up in their solos, including those not apt to the Northern Soul set: Noel’s especially was to segue into that set. Mr Trulock the Headmaster was going to conjure; Miss Hart, to recite Slow’s ‘Moonrakers’ poem. Young Silverthorne was to juggle (which, Charles confided, should at least be amusing, if inadvertently); the infants were to sing a few simple songs.

And certain spotty youths, well removed from the preparations for the Village Concert, were being watched, and their past actions and present assertions investigated, by the local plods.

* * *

‘– curious thing,’ said the duke. ‘Carolina Beach Music and Northern Soul are practically the same thing; but socially…. The latter is a working-class and of course a Northern phenomenon, whose devotees raise what amounts to the Americans’ “Black nationalism” fist; the former is the music of old-family white Southerners who are rather our sort of people, so far as any American is. The – you’re not listening.’

His sister-in-law took another teacake. ‘I am perfectly happy to _converse_ with you, Charles, even in your many boring moments. I don’t and shan’t attend to your _lectures._ The distinction between conversation and monologue has always been lost on you.’

* * *

‘I notice,’ said Edmond, ‘you’ve taken to calling him as “Noel”, in a _very_ tender voice.’

‘Well, I can’t very well call him “Father”, can I?’ Sher was too wise to enter into denials of his tone.

‘I bet you’d like to call him _“Daddy”,_ wouldn’t you, as he –’

‘Does Teddy call _you_ that?’ The best defence, in dealing with Edmond, was commonly attack. ‘You being the oldest of us all.’

Edmond bridled in outrage. ‘I don’t _age,_ ’ snapped he. ‘You do talk a lot of shit.’

* * *

‘Gwen. Thanks for seeing me. Er – before we go to tea … d’ you have a moment?’

‘I’ll take one.’

‘Look. Er.’ Sher scrubbed his hand through his hair, at the back of his head, ruffling it into an absurd cockscomb. Gwen stifled a giggle: it was, truly, she reflected, such a pity that they weren’t suited or suitable, and that each loved another, for Sher really was ridiculously attractive, and utterly sweet.

‘Sher. Do speak.’

‘Yeah. Um. I really didn’t mean to…. I mean, it was never my intention…. What I’m trying to say is, when I asked you out, and then when you were so kind. Well. I never thought – I’m sorry – it never occurred to me, well….’

She took pity on him. ‘And you an English master. Are you apologising for my being splashed with the vitriol that comes your way, or for your going along with my plan to act your beard – or is it something else?’

‘Both. It was wrong of me. And it used you – I never meant to do –’

‘It was my idea – and I’m glad I did it. Particularly in light of all this: I’m so glad it’s past, and everyone knows how truly good you are, and innocent. I’m _glad_ I did it. As a friend – and I’ll always be your friend. But if you’re calling it off….’

‘Yes. Um. Feel free to make it my fault.’

‘Don’t be daft. It’s no one’s business that we stop walking out, any more than that we did walk out; and the last thing you want just now is more condemnation. And it was never serious: it’s not as if you’re volunteering to take the blame for a broken engagement or a breach of promise. You really want to start teaching more modern literature, evidently: you must be giving your pupils nothing but a steady diet of Austen and Bronte, if this is your first instinct.’

‘You … you don’t mind?’

‘No…. No. In fact –’ she took a breath, a moment, and the plunge – ‘if you hadn’t said something, I’d’ve done. I happen to have another admirer, and – I’d like to see where it goes.’

‘But that’s super, Gwen! Who is he – it is a he, isn’t it, we’ve never discussed your sexuality, please don’t let me have offended inadvertently –’

‘Of course it’s a he, you silly bugger.’ They both giggled at that. ‘I’m straight as a die.’

‘Well, but who?’

She looked away, smiling. ‘I don’t know that I ought to say….’

‘Gwen! C’mon. You know _my_ secrets.’

Gwen laughed. ‘I’ve heard of Gay Best Friends – every heroine wants one – but are there Bi Best Friends?’

‘Well, _I_ am,’ said Sher, with an adorable pout.

‘Oh, all _right._ He’s about your age; he’s interested in horses; he part owns a few runners.’

‘And?’

‘He lives locally.’

‘Gwen, do come _on._ ’

‘You really can’t guess, even with that? And you a clever-clogs?’

‘No!’

‘Promise you’ll keep it dead secret?’

‘I promise,’ said he, suddenly serious.

‘All right.’ She paused a moment. ‘He’ll not cost much in boarding, but – faith and begorrah – the feed bills’ll be enormous.’

Sher’s face lit with happiness for his friends. ‘Gwennie! _The Breener_?’

‘Yes, you silly man – put me down and stop twirling, you and I are supposed to be breaking up, not celebrating your rival’s cutting you out! No, seriously, stop, I’ll be sick!’

‘Oh, you two are going to be so great!’

‘Sher, honestly, you’re happier than _I_ am.’

‘Well, and it’s not going to be easy hiding that – how long am I going to want to keep this secret?’

‘Sher –’

‘I’ll keep the secret, I promise!’

‘See that you do.’ She was exultant. ‘See that you do. It’s early days yet.’

‘But you’re sure. I can see it.’

She blushed prettily. ‘Yes. I really think I am.’

‘I’m so happy for you. I am, truly. Both of you.’

‘I can tell. You look as if you can’t decide whether you want to be best man or a bridesmaid!’

‘Oi!’

‘You’re the one volunteered to be the Bi Best Friend, dear.’

Sher took refuge once more in his patent Adorable Pout.

* * *

There’d been, at tea, a certain amount of chaff amongst The Lads, relating to Sher’s ‘no longer having his knickers in a twist’ – the price and consequence of his seeming more content since he’d spoken with Gwen Evans – which had devolved into an unlearned discussion of that phrase, and of the more American version of ‘having one’s panties in a bunch’.

That night, at Chalkhills, with a tolerant smile, Teddy had taken Edmond up on something he’d noticed, keen-eyed, at tea.

‘You were thinking it, weren’t you.’

‘What?’ Edmond’s affectation of innocence was well done; but his full-body blush – which, it being night at Chalkhills in their bedroom, Teddy was perfectly well-placed to see and drool over – betrayed him.

‘You were thinking of Sher in knickers. _Panties._ Silky, lacy….’ Teddy’s huge hands were roaming; Edmond was squirming, and not merely in embarrassment. ‘You were. And probably of Noel’s taking them off him. Slowly.’

‘ _Teddy_!’

‘Everyone fantasises about Sher, love.’

‘I –’

‘You were. Lie about it again, love, and I’ll spank you – no, I won’t: you’d too clearly _like_ that. But I’ll tell you what I am going to do: because I am standing on a manifesto of things having consequences. And there _are_ going to be consequences.’

‘What?’ Had it been possible for Edmond to blush any more than he was blushing already, he’d have done so at hearing how breathily that came out.

Teddy’s response was a low growl. ‘I am going to make you forget that Sher, and Noel, and every man on the face of earth other than _me,_ bloody _exists._ ’

This he managed to do despite the recent frequency of interruption in both households – as at the Rectory, at Sher’s cottage, and chez Breener – by the Clumber puppies nowadays installed in their new homes.

* * *

The weather now was fully seasonal. Frosts had sheathed the fields and hedgerows, several nights running; and the woods were ablaze with colour that Westonbirt could scarce match. Bonfire Night was imminent.

So also, according to the Met Office, was a windstorm, more wind than rain; yet even a little rain should be enough to reassert the reasons why – as the duke always put it – there were three parishes cheek by jowl, like strip lynchets. Wise householders and farmers who knew the land of old were preparing against localised flooding.

First, however – doing good whilst there was yet time – the villages came together for the Village Concert, held, the Church Hall not yet being ready, at the Leisure Centre in Parva, central to all.

The non-musical part of the evening had gone down a bomb – and with a rush. (Charles had been quite right: young Silverthorne had managed the best-loved comic turn to tread the boards … unintentionally. ‘Tommy Cooper,’ said the duke, ‘is simply not in it.’) The duke, after, with Sher at the piano and singing the second part, had simply knocked Flanders and Swann’s ‘Slow Train’ for six, to much applause and a certain amount of knowing laughter – particularly from Tom Douty. And then, to The Breener’s especial delight, the first – to all expectation, the only – Mystery Musical Guests of the evening had been brought out: Messrs Hannon and Walsh, The Duckworth Lewis Method – with Charles, when it came to it, doing the spoken commentator’s part on ‘Mason On the Boundary’, in a fashion that called Blowers irresistibly to mind.

After an intermission, the villages crowded back in, excited and happy; and the Mystery Comic did not disappoint.

The duke, as compère, made the introduction. ‘In this second half of the evening, we’ll be – someone calm Simon Kellow, please – featuring some Northern Soul. So I thought a cheeky Northern comic’d be appropriate to host us on. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr –’

Even the duke’s voice was drowned out by the cheers and applause.

‘Well, I hope you weren’t expecting the late Bernard Manning!’ The famous cheeky grin was brighter than the lights.

‘Where’s David?’

‘Oh, you laid on hecklers! _Thoughtful._ I thought we wanted to have fun, not listen to a rant, and the duke can supply all the posh that’s wanted: so you get me! I mean … would I lie to you?’ The audience roared.

Patter and laughter, cheers and applause; and then: ‘Now, Woolfonts. This is straight R&B, here, not Northern Soul – not yet – give it up for Mr Sher Mirza!’

Sher, his persona transformed by the donned mask of the performer, strode confidently onto the stage, with his backing singers. With no moves or gestures, and with no want of them, he took his cue, simply, and began singing ‘Shake You Down’ as if he owned the stage: as, by his first high notes, cadenzas, riffs, and rills, he did. When he finished, there was a breathless moment of dead silence; and then a storm of applause, as he ducked his head with a shy grin that made women (and the usual number of men) transform internally into so many teenaged Hettys.

The Breener followed, for once without his guitar; and swung into his solo: ‘Fly Me to the Moon’. They did. Visiting musicians – even the hired backing band who’d rehearsed with The Lads – exchanged glances that recognised that this Village Concert was an extraordinary thing, which could not be bettered at Wembley or in a great London hall or arena.

‘Mr Brian Maguire! And now, ladies and gentlemen of the Woolfonts, the Northern Soul portion of tonight’s concert, with solos from Teddy Gates; Edmond Huskisson; and your Rector – seriously: your _Rector_ – and then two songs from your own local group, appearing tonight only, The Fonts!’

Like The Breener before him, Teddy was piqued to a frenzy of friendly, emulative competition by Sher’s, and then The Breener’s, triumphs. The hottest and most yakety sax the duke’s money could hire wailed, and Teddy, growling, prowling, shimmying, and clearly singing every line to a delighted Edmond, seized the stage, covering the Junior Walker version of ‘I Ain’t Going Nowhere’. The duke grabbed his shocked sister-in-law and lifted her onto the stage, her children leaping up to join them, and spun her, dancing, into the arms of her sons in succession, as he in turn swept up and dipped his giggling niece; the villages together began dancing between the chairs; Noel, beaming, exchanged a raised right fist salute with a Simon Kellow whose grin all but split his face as he danced with his wife; and the Woolfonts simply rocked.

As the ovation subsided in thunder, Edmond, very much not to be outdone, sashayed – there was no other word for it – to centre stage. ‘Well! I’ve only one thing to say to _that,_ Teddy, darling.

‘Maestro, if you please….’

The plangent sax once more: the Junior Walker and the All Stars arrangement, but a voice nearer to Gloria Jones’: ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)’, every breathy word freighted with glaringly obvious truth and meaning. As the Woolfonts danced, acceptingly, the duke rolled his eyes; Noel put his hands up, laughing; Sher and The Breener grinned and kept nudging Teddy; and Teddy simply glowed, love-struck as ever and joyfully awed.

Again an ovation; and then a great quiet, as Noel stood forth, innocent of any competitiveness – but inspired to newer heights all the same. ‘I really am not,’ smiled he, ‘responsible for the set list…. But I can think of little that might be more appropriate than this next.’

The beat; the chords; the drums. ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher’: Noel’s voice swooping and skylarking, falsettos perfect, swooning and swoon-worthy. The villages were still, transfixed. (And Hetty and Sher were breathing equally rapidly, with eyes equally dilated.)

During the tribute of awed applause that followed, the duke, The Breener, Sher, Teddy, and Edmond walked out to share the stage with Noel. They began with The Futures’ ‘Party Time Man’, which afforded scope for each of The Lads to have suitable solo lines and verses, for superb harmonies, and for the duke to weigh in – the _mot juste_ – with his thunderous _basso._ The duke raised a hand to still the applause: it was time for the apt ending of the segment (of the concert as such, most – The Lads included – thought). The xylophonic trill; the beat; ‘Hold Back the Night’, Teddy and Sher trading off leads, with the duke’s foundation-shifting notes underpinning the choruses and harmonies.

The villages were on their feet, now, shouting for more. The duke again stilled them with a glance. ‘The Lads – my fellow members of The Fonts, ahem: which in Huskisson’s case is probably Comic Sans – early on, and until I finally put my foot down, were determined that we should cover another song, particularly: although it also is not strictly Northern Soul. As it happens, I had my reasons for denying that request. And here they are: our second set of musical guests, as a surprise to all.’

Madness broke out as Madness took the stage; and as the opening bars of ‘Our House’ sounded, The Lads, in delight, dragged Charles, duke of Taunton, sputtering, down in a mass hug, as the villages cheered.

Formally, the Village Concert ended as it always ended: with the sing-along, all the old favourites – most of them from the world wars or the palmy days of Empire – (‘They’re playing our song,’ said Edmond, slyly, to Teddy, when it was time for ‘Any Old Iron’; and got an elbow in his ribs for his pains), in this last major celebration before Remembrance Day, to which Bonfire Night was at best a damp squib. But the knees-up did not truly end with ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’, this year, nor did it run out with ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’; nor did its sword sleep in its hand after ‘Jerusalem’ was sung, or the villages file out after having stood for ‘The Queen’.

Not this year. The bands – all of them – played on, after Madness’ set and the sing-along, session musicians and stars joining together, the duke and The Lads roped in from time to time (The Breener seized the chance to do ‘Mack the Knife’, ‘Danny Boy’, and ‘When I Was Seventeen’): well after the Village Concert was officially ended, they all played on, jamming into the night as the villages together laughed and danced and sang along, rejoicing.

‘You lot could be professional,’ said a star to the duke and The Lads, as he took a break and gulped water. ‘At least do a charity single.’

‘Aging ducal boyband,’ said the duke, to a chorus of not wholly mock exasperation from The Lads. ‘We may yet: but I think we’ve more than covered costs tonight, with your aid, for which of course we’re greatly obliged.’

‘Any time, Your Grace. Seriously. Any time.’

And the evening ended at last, as all evenings must end; ended well before 8.0 the next morning, but, to Mr Kellow’s delight, with the traditional Northern Soul ‘three before eight’ that had always ended an all-nighter in his youth: Jimmy Radcliffe; Tobi Legend; Dean Parrish: ‘Long After Tonight Is All Over’, ‘Time Will Pass You By’, and ‘I’m On My Way’.

‘Our duke, he’ve outdone hizze’f again,’ said Mr Kellow, as he said yearly; and it was, as yearly, true, and truer than the year before, and even Lady Crispin cheerfully agreed. Already, everyone was wondering how the duke could manage to trump himself next year, as they all walked off into the cold, still night, and someone struck up (and everyone joined in), as someone did yearly, ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

The music was stilled. The hall was deserted. The duke was jangling the keys, pointedly, Snookishly, unheeded; the musicians and the comic had left in a welter of thanks and goodbyes and mutual admiration; the villages and all bar two of The Lads had departed. Dancing slowly together in their own little bubble, without want of music, unknowing of their solitude, unhearing of the duke and his grumbling, Edmond said to Teddy, softly, ‘Do you want to go home?’

‘Oh, anywhere, so long as –’

‘Let’s go to Chicago?’

‘I ain’t going nowhere, honey, unless I go with you.’ They danced on, swaying, intertwined, wrapt in and ’round one another.

The duke, giving up for once, trusting them to have sense enough to lock up upon leaving, whenever that might be, dropped the keys on a chair and washed his hands of them, slipping away into the night.

‘Idiots,’ said he to himself, fondly.

* * *

> More about _Cross and Poppy_ and the _Village Tales_ series may be viewed at [our tumblr](http://baptonbooks.tumblr.com/) and at the dedicated tumblr, [The Woolfonts](http://thewoolfonts.tumblr.com/). I am _intensely_ relaxed as regards having these made the subject of transformative works by others.


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